Less than a month ago, a small office opened. Sadly, it did not garner as much press attention as it deserved. In fact, for an office that openly contradicts the First Amendment, it opened without much fanfare at all.
On Feb. 20, President George W. Bush opened the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. On his website, the President pledged to commit "the nation to mobilizing the armies of compassion -- charities and churches, communities and corporations, ministers and mentors -- to save and change lives." The purpose of government faith-based initiatives is to create "partnerships" with religious organizations that provide social services.
While certainly well-intentioned, Mr. Bush's plan breaches the separation of church and state. In providing government aid to faith-based organizations, Mr. Bush's initiative threatens to contaminate each organization's independence with government influence and control, thus jeopardizing the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.
Even Pat Robertson, conservative television evangelist and longtime Bush ally, expressed concern about the faith-based initiatives, calling them a "Pandora's box . . . that can rise up to bite the organizations as well as the federal government."
In directing social service funds through religious organizations, the government consciously or unconsciously presses its agenda into religious institutions, which come to depend on government subsidies for their existence. Under the First Amendment, membership in and financial support of religious organizations in the United States are the voluntary prerogatives of religiously committed individuals. With the President's faith-based initiatives, however, revenue from all taxpayers will be funneled into religious organizations. The inevitable effect of mandating general revenue to support religious organizations is the dangerous blurring of the distinction between church and state.
Organizations such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Lutheran Services in America and Catholic Charities USA predict the legalization of federally funded employment discrimination as a result of such initiatives. Currently, for example, religious organizations are allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion while hiring. Once these organizations are subsidized by government money, will government-funded agencies tolerate discrimination based on religion? The notion that our constitutional democracy founded on the premise of religious liberty could discriminate by religion is disturbing and absurd.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) proposes a compromise of sorts by supporting safeguards on faith-based initiatives. In a letter to President Bush, the ADL calls for an assurance that federally-funded religious organizations would not discriminate based on religion. Furthermore, ADL suggests the creation of "proper firewalls between the government-funded services and the core religious activities of a religious organization, so that taxpayer dollars are not channeled into other religious activities of sectarian organizations." ADL and others are rightly concerned that religious organizations will be able to divert social service budgets to other religious endeavors given that the federal government is now providing subsidy; in effect, the federal government will be supporting other religious activities, such as proselytizing.
A prerequisite for these initiatives is a secular alternative to each religious option. According to the President, the secular alternatives would allow individuals to choose whether or not they want to participate in religiously affiliated social services. While this may be true, Mr. Bush never addresses the issue of proximity or availability of secular alternatives. For example, a Buddhist family may feel uncomfortable asking a Baptist organization for help (will there be a subtle solicitation of any kind?), but because of logistical problems, they may have no other choices. Such a family is then "forced" to use a particular religious organization for what might otherwise be a secular government program, arguably another violation of the First Amendment. Furthermore, the existence of secular alternatives does not alleviate the inherent contamination of tax-based general revenue supporting religious organizations.
In a speech in Indianapolis in 1999, President Bush proclaimed that the government "will keep a commitment to pluralism [and] not discriminate for or against Methodists or Mormons or Muslims or good people with no faith at all." Later, in the spring of 2000, Bush said that he would not give funds to the Nation of Islam because "Louis Farrakhan preaches hate." The ADL concurs with Bush, stating that it's important to "ensure that extremist, terrorist and hatemongering groups are not able to receive governmental money."
In making such proclamations, the President and the ADL create problems for themselves. How can policymakers precisely distinguish between extremist organizations and those that simply are firmly based in their beliefs and traditions? Who is qualified and unbiased enough to make such decisions?
President James Madison faced a similar issue of faith-based initiatives in 1811. At that time, he vetoed a bill that gave federal funds to churches that educated and aided the poor, citing conflicts with the First Amendment. Since Madison did not sign the bill, the United States successfully avoided promoting religious organizations directly through government participation.
President Bush's faith-based initiatives are meant to better the lives of America's needy. Charitable Choice supporters would argue that the faster the government can relieve the suffering of America's poor, the better. They have a point -- there are important issues of social activism and charity that need to be addressed, and the federal government should have a role in addressing them. Nevertheless, to assist the impoverished at the cost of the philosophical foundation of our tried-and-proven constitutional democracy is myopic. It will ultimately undermine freedom of choice and compound the very social crises that faith-based initiatives are meant to alleviate.
